


Terminalia

by Vee



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, M/M, Murder, Organized Crime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:16:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vee/pseuds/Vee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the right circles that knew the oral history of the great unwritten wars, they were known as the Titans. Sport killers who traded on the thrill of the human hunt, for no apparent reason other than to see the rest of the underground start running in circles and pissing itself. Word was, they didn’t desire the money. They didn’t desire the prestige or the fealty of other gangs. Decades ago they’d effectively taken up residence in every nest of criminal profit within several states, using no means other than pure, unmitigated terror. The fact that they were back… that’s what Levi had learned early into his latest job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Ludi Plebeii

**Author's Note:**

> I'll level with everyone: if I've been in a fandom, I've probably written a crime A/U. This is just a genre that resonates with me, and which I have way too much morbid fun writing. I've spent the last couple of days plotting this thing in between writing it, not just to give myself a short mental vacation from 1994, but to flex my muscles on something else within the SnK world. 
> 
> For now, only one chapter in, which is really the Prologue, EruRi is the only real ship. That's actually pretty true of the whole story as I've plotted it so far; romance isn't the endgame of this one, though both casual and more emotionally charged encounters will criss-cross between pairings as the thing progresses. EruRi is the only SHIP, per se, because as you'll soon read the weight of the whole world would come crashing down if that were to be compromised. 
> 
> Most of the main cast are going to feature in the story at some point, but special attention will be given to Eren, Armin, and the Reiner/Bertl/Annie trio. At least as far as I've plotted already. Hanji and Mike are also showing up in the next chapter, but hey, I'll hold a few things close to my chest. I've got a fun ride planned, here, so if you're into the idea of the criminal underworld, step right up?

An ice cube melted down in the glass on Jameson of the nightstand to let the one above it splash into the watery leftovers. The noise was faint, but it was just enough to interrupt the silence and allow conversation back in. “You don’t give things up easily, do you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

One body slid over another, smaller against larger, and Levi tried to get a read on his eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried.

“Bullshit. You’re a careful man, Erwin Smith.” Entirely convinced it was an assumed name, he let his tone say as much plainly. “Not that I mind the silence, but we do spend a lot of time in it.”

“I told you already, I like the silence for a change. My work… what I do… that’s not actually something I talk about.”

“You’ve told me enough.”

“Only two types of men are eager to talk about their work: insecure, and decent.”

“You’re suggesting that you’re neither?” It had been three months. They both knew it hadn’t been an accident. Everything that wasn’t said in flesh was said between the lines. Just in case. Everything, careful. Everything, deliberate. And yet sometimes when the contemplative silence stretched on long enough, and another hour ticked away, Levi knew things were understood.

“Take me somewhere,” he said bluntly, spreading his fingers on Erwin’s bare chest, still searching out a reaction.

“I’ll need some more detail on what you mean by that.”

Levi took a breath through his nose and shifted, tangling the sheets with him as he sat up and started to stretch. “I’m an escort,” he said it like it was breaking news. “I’m supposed to escort you places.”

“This—“

Quickly, he leaned in to put a hand over Erwin’s mouth. “And don’t you dare say this is a place.”

Though Levi’s actual strength belied his slight build, and it was easy to tell after spending three, four hours at a time in a bedroom with him, he still let Erwin pull him around as easily as he pleased. Because he knew Erwin knew. He landed halfway on his lap and leaned to flatten his back on the other man’s chest. “This _is_ a place,” Erwin began, kissing Levi on the neck. Times like this, when they were so gentle with one another, Levi almost wanted to laugh because _they both knew_. “But I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you _escort_ me to a function next Friday night.”  

Levi didn’t like the sound of the word _function_. Function was a word that was tossed about when no decent word would do. But they were not decent men; that much had already been established. “Go on.”

With the date confirmed, and the place, written in Levi’s practiced shorthand on the back of a business card, the silence of knowing settled back in. “Work function?”

“Work function,” Erwin confirmed with a sigh.

Though instructed to keep the room for the night, Levi protested. Though told to relax and not feel obligated to put clothes on or even get out of bed, Levi walked him to the door of the suite regardless. “I told you, you don’t have to pay me anymore.” He hadn’t put clothes on, as a compromise, but the plush bathrobe that came with the place was too much to pass up.

“My turn to call bullshit.” Erwin reached into his wallet and fanned the bills first to make sure he was pulling out the hundreds. “You need to make money like anyone else, or you wouldn’t be in this business. I don’t care that you do claim to like me enough.”

Talking back wasn’t worth it. Levi nearly rolled his eyes, but he held out his hand nevertheless and curled his fingers around six hundred dollars. “Besides…” Erwin’s fingers lingered on his, and Levi relaxed what might have become a fist to feel it. Tilting his head, he looked up at those eyes that never told him anything, and was trying to pierce to the depths so ferociously that he almost didn’t pay attention to the words that told him everything. “You know you’re worth more.”

It was not the tone of voice a lover employed, not even one who paid for companionship. Around the money, their fingers slid together, and Levi squinted ever-so-slightly. For the first time in years, instinct did not tell him to glance quickly behind his back or even take a spatial inventory of his surroundings.

The goodbyes were terse; they always were.

As soon as he shut the door with a flip of his wrist, Levi walked into the bedroom. He was able to ignore the state they’d left the bed in, at least as long as his mind was preoccupied. A quick reach into the pocket of his suit blazer, and he pulled out a cell phone. He crossed his legs on the edge of the bed and clutched the robe tighter, just for the sake of his own appearance in the mirror.

The number was saved under his contacts as NORMA, and it was a bad joke if anyone ever dared to make the connection. Few knew about his propensity for bad jokes, though, so the cover seemed safe enough. It was also the only number in the phone. He dialed and held it in his lap; the silence of the room made one ring through the earpiece crystal clear before he hung up. 

It took two minutes, and that was at least one and a half minutes too long.

“Are you fucking kidding me with that delay, I could have been killed by now,” he answered, on the phone that he kept in the back pocket of his pants. His real phone. The wait had made him antsy, and he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping. There was too much to be done. He had one sock on when the phone rang, underwear, and an unbuttoned Armani shirt.

“My fault, chief.”

He knew it wasn’t Petra’s fault, but placing blame was not something that she did.

“Write this down,” he went on without giving another thought to who dropped the ball, and grabbed the business card. He read from the back after giving her three seconds of prep time. “845 Utrecht.”

There was a pause. “That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Date, time, anything else?”

“Friday. That’s all I know, I’ll be present.”

Petra was vocally skeptical, and while she ranted Levi just lifted the card to his nose and smelled it. He caught the whiff of cologne and thought about blue eyes in spite of himself. “Petra,” he finally said, exhaling as he did. “Can you trust that I’ve thought about this more than you have?”

“You’re going into a fucking Titan den.”

“Duly noted.”

She waited a few seconds to respond. “You’re planning something, aren’t you? Chief?” She waited again, and when Levi didn’t acknowledge her she added, “We’re still killing them _all_ , right?”

He knew it had been unwise to do business with a former colleague, but pickings had been slim for a coordinator he trusted. Petra knew him too well, which was something that came from familiarity rather than kismet. He hung up on her and blinked at the phone until the screen went black.

Freezing rain was drizzling when he walked outside, taking the key to the room with him just in case the space proved useful as the night went on. He reported back to the agency and fielded the usual dirty looks from the other whores that were too noble and delusional to call it what it was. In his black label suit and perfect white scarf, he may have only seemed like he didn’t belong there. But the rumors were founded in truth, a sadly reverent truth that circulated in whispers to confirm that he’d been in the racket for a long time. A professional. A favored man. Of course that was part of the long con. Guns for hire needed several covers. Levi was nothing if not multifarious, nothing else if not thorough.

He informed them that he’d be leaving town by Friday, to suspend any regular clientele from his services right away. Immediately he began to believe the story, because believing the story was the only way to make it work. Everyone would hear it from his barber to his downstairs neighbor. The motions were old, though. Disappearing was easy, even when he had no idea where he’d end up.

The most important client, though – the one who sometimes asked him through a vocoder on the phone what he’d learned, and other times through a second or third party in a restaurant or a bar – to that client it was business as usual.

Levi had a new phone the next day. The SIM card, top half, and bottom half of the one he’d talked to Petra on were scattered in different trash bins around the city by then.

_The grout between the tiles in the shower was immaculate. Not that Levi was bored enough to look so carefully, but it was always the same high-rise, the same penthouse, the same shower. He had his inklings that money never changed hands for the room, and he had his inklings as to why, so he was relieved and impressed at the fact that the grout between the tiles in the shower was immaculate._

_He liked it in the shower. They both did, really. It was an easy place to start, an easy place to wind up. Somewhere private, really, more private than the penthouse and more private than the bedroom within it. There were few places he ever felt completely serene, and remarkably the shower was one of them._

_Deep, dull jolts rocked his body as he surged against the shower wall with every thrust, trying to hold himself steady, listening as skin slapped wet skin, listening as his own voice enveloped and gave birth to sounds he normally never made._

_He came against the tile and its immaculate grout and Erwin came in his ass. In the drip-dry patience of the afterglow, he always allowed a bit of maudlin sentimentality. That night, however, Erwin just gave his ear a biting kiss and whispered: “You’ve killed someone.”_

_The silence Levi offered was nothing short of damning, not that he didn’t already figure that Erwin knew._

_“Takes one to know one,” he whispered back._

_“This is a gunshot wound on your back.” Like he needed to give further explanation, like he hadn’t been eyeing it since he first fucked Levi on his knees, like he hadn’t also seen the scars from stab wounds and worse. He didn’t refute Levi’s retort, though. “Someone shot you in the back.”_

_“Murderer is quite a leap to make from a bullet wound, though.” He thought about turning around, but didn’t. Erwin was still inside of him, and he liked that feeling._

_“And your eyes. Your eyes say it all.”_

_And Erwin’s said nothing. Which was infinitely more terrifying._

The function was more lavish than Levi expected, considering the property at 845 Utrecht and the general state of decay and disrepair throughout. But, those who handled the function were experts at making the most of what they had at any given moment. It had been appointed thoughtfully with just the right amount of patchwork opulence, and just enough self-conscious restraint that it didn’t approach hubris.

Levi pretended to be wondering what was going to happen, but found it difficult to pretend to be shocked when the first guest was dragged to the center of the room to have her skin meticulously removed until and after she passed out screaming in pain.

In the right circles that knew the oral history of the great unwritten wars, they were known as the Titans. Sport killers who traded on the thrill of the human hunt, for no apparent reason other than to see the rest of the underground start running in circles and pissing itself. Word was, they didn’t desire the money. They didn’t desire the prestige or the fealty of other gangs. Decades ago they’d effectively taken up residence in every nest of criminal profit within several states, using no means other than pure, unmitigated terror. The fact that they were back… that’s what Levi had learned early into his latest job. The fact that they weren’t as organized as they seemed… that’s what had been more difficult to extract, especially when he started to read between the troubling, intoxicating lines of Erwin Smith.

Erwin Smith, who subtly tightened his hand on Levi’s neck, holding him close with a protective twitch while the next victim was dragged pleading to center ring. This one was beaten, kicked, and pummeled until literally broken. The music of flesh yielding to force and bones cracking and tissue rending wasn’t something Levi particularly liked, but it was music he knew. He looked up at Erwin, who glanced back at him immediately.

If things worked out the way they were meant to, a disappearing act was the least of his responsibilities. But even if they didn’t, he’d have a contingency in getting the satisfaction of killing at least four motherfuckers in the room. Whether Erwin was to be included, he didn’t know. They would save him for last. That had been one of many compromises with Petra, with the whole team.

Levi reached up and tugged at his earlobe.

To his credit, Erwin remained quiet as all hell broke loose. He sat back and let his arm slide away as Levi stood up. Calmly, he crossed one leg at the knee and let it happen.

Levi didn’t like handguns. They felt like playthings and didn’t require the skill he valued in his work. Aiming with a pistol was no real challenge for him; not that pistols weren’t useful, but it had taken a significant argument with Petra to convince her to have the team bring his shotgun, and he intended to show off. Erd, the ex-Marine with a dishonorable discharge under his belt whom Levi had lured away from his illicit bodyguard job, was the one who came in brandishing the case by a strap over his shoulder. He was also toting the .38 that Levi tucked into his waistband. For cleanup. After all, pistols were useful. They just failed on the elegance test.

Even while he checked the weapon quickly and carefully, seemingly lost in his focus, Levi noted the bodies as they began to drop in the cacophony of hollering and shooting and death rattles all around. The poor bastards who’d been brought in as entertainment couldn’t be spared, sadly; not for all the gravity of the events unfolding. But Levi had stressed that their deaths be particularly swift. They’d have begged for such mercy, where they were headed. 

 _Thud. Thump. Crash._ The team was working well. Two of the Titans down, another in Auruo’s hands, and he wasn’t about to be quick with his work. He was a veteran; told Levi he’d been in the hole for twenty years. He’d been a shakedown man, a thug. Thugs didn’t know how to get things over and done with cleanly and efficiently, not that Levi cared. They had some time.

Levi stroked the well-handled butt of the shotgun as his eyes swept the room. He pushed in the release. With a swift, throaty rattle the pump slid back in his hand, claiming everyone’s attention for at least a split-second. He tilted his head severely until the tightness in his neck released with an unsettling crack.

He liked slugs for most jobs, but had loaded up with buckshot for the occasion. That they _felt_ it was key, that they wallowed in the sudden realization that even if they made it to a hospital it would be excruciating pain to even handle the wound, and that they realized all of that futility before they begged for one more breath… that was key. He kicked the first sonofabitch who came toward him, aiming from the corner of his eye and grounding him easily before he put the barrel to his neck and pulled the trigger. It would take some time for him to bleed out, just like the girl who’d been flayed alive, so Levi put a .38 round into his kneecap to keep him from getting far as his body struggled in the death throes.

Looks and cues passed silently amongst those standings. Most had been strangers only weeks before, when Levi began to strategize and brainstorm the whole operation. They worked well together because they didn’t feel the need to burden things with _talking_. What they knew about each other was only necessary to understand style and tactics. Even with that, Levi doubted he even had real names from any of them.    

There were only eight Titans in the room that night, altogether. Levi shot one in the small of the back and ground his heel into the buckshot wound as the man screamed bloody murder. He gave Petra the assist, knowing she’d be particularly happy to slit at least one throat that evening. On his third kill, though, he went for glory, and got the barrel between teeth before he blasted through soft tissue and brain and the intricate web of blood vessels, regretting only that some of the blowback wound up on his shirt, while viscera soaked into his pants cuff.

Petra killed one, not counting her assist. Auruo, ever dedicated, took his time on his single target. Gunter dispatched with the victims-in-waiting, but it was in everyone’s best interests since he was probably the only one amongst them skilled at not being showy about it. Erd, commensurate with his reputation, killed two. Levi shot the sobbing, deathbed repentant in the brain and pulled ahead of the pack with three dispatched, though no one was surprised. It was all over within five minutes. His only regret was wearing the Magli wingtips. The blood had absolutely ruined them already.   

There was a ninth.

Almost every sight in the room focused on Erwin as he surveyed the scene. After several moments Levi realized he was scouting for survivors. It was slightly insulting, but then his eyes lifted from Erd’s second kill, the one shot right through the chest, and met Levi’s meaningfully. Maybe the bastard had been spared by the slightest of degrees, because Erd was nothing if not exacting. Even though Levi doubted he would be able to muster up the strength to get the jump on them, he pulled the .38 from his pants quickly and emptied another precious round into the body that only Erwin had apparently noticed twitching.

Three kills. One assist.

Erwin nodded, his expression not wavering as he stood up, slowly kicking aside a limp body to clear the path between himself and Levi.

There were no words at first; he just stepped forward and extended a hand.

Levi wasn’t one for empty gestures of goodwill, and he knew Erwin wasn’t either. Without another move, he flipped the weight of the shotgun on his shoulder until it leveled with the other man’s chest. Consciously, Erwin took another step forward, letting the barrel press firmly against him.

Erwin wasn’t one for empty gestures of intimidation. So Levi righted his stance, took the gun in both hands, and slowly racked the pump to prove he wasn’t simply playing gangster.

“You killed the boss,” Erwin informed him. The other three guns trained on him didn’t seem to register; he was only concerned with Levi in that moment.

“I don’t know that I can believe that.”

“You don’t have to. That’s the beauty of it.”

It was everything about their short, fucked-up history together distilled into surprisingly few words.

“Your group is talented,” Erwin went on when Levi did not.

“I choose people well.”

“You’ll part ways after this?”

“ _Tout suite_. As soon as I divvy the cash.”

“You were hired to take out a Titan den? I find that hard to believe.”

“No. This was something I did on my own. This is catharsis. I was hired for intel.” A pause. “It’s not worth it to ask who hired me.”

Erwin laughed softly and the shotgun wavered with the movement. “Is it?”

He thought about it, and considered it, rolled it over in his hands and looked at it from every conceivable angle. Levi tried to suppress the feeling of humiliation, the sinking sensation of having been played, until he realized that he didn’t have to. The sensation of having been played so _completely_ and so _artfully_ was actually exhilarating. It was almost erotic, to someone who rarely had the chance to feel it. “Why this, then? What do you want?”

The eyes said it all. Levi lifted one hand from the butt of the gun and waved the rest of the team off. He still returned to the shotgun, despite it. He’d be the one to pull the trigger if it came down to not getting paid. The fall had been his to take from the beginning. “Oh, everything.”

Being subordinate was something Levi had never agreed with. The feeling usually carved deep grooves of bitterness inside of him that laid paths for machination. Because he was _better,_ he was _smarter,_ he was always the more capable one. Even the most temporary jobs were temporary because of it, and he was finally in a place that meant he was keeper of his own destiny. He’d planned to maintain communication with Petra and scuttle into another hole until the next opportunity presented itself. The dividends from the current job would have funded him for months. Until he realized what the dividends truly were.

“Let any of them go that ask. Pay them accordingly from what you would have given me.” Levi was quiet about it, but firm.

Erwin glanced quickly around the room. Maybe he was doing calculations; how many bodies were worth how many thousand dollars, after all? He raised his voice and his eyes returned to Levi’s. “Anyone who wants to stay has a month to decide otherwise. The original terms are still good, for that long. It’s going to be difficult. But I promise you it will never be boring, and it will never be less than worth your while.”

Being subordinate was something Levi had never agreed with, until that night.   


	2. Agonium Martiale

Occasionally Levi would make a random acquaintance, someone unimportant enough to treat with cloying small talk just to get through the interaction for whatever reason. _“What do you do?”_ The conversation would usually wind around to at some point. When he answered that he was self-employed, then came the ignorant jealousy and exclamations of how great it must be to set his own hours and not have a horse’s ass of a boss to worry about.

He let them believe it, and sometimes nodded in his best approximation of cheerful confirmation before trying to change the subject.

The fact of the matter, though, was that every morning that alarm clock still went off at 7:00 a.m., and every morning he still pulled himself out of sleep to wish for the easy routine of a day-to-day life, a day-to-day occupation. That morning he was quite literally on the wrong side of the bed, not that it didn’t happen from time to time. Emerging from a comfortable curve against Erwin’s back, he clambered halfway over him and reached with a grunt to slam the snooze alarm on the opposite bedside table. When he sighed back into position, he was (as he always was) captivated by the silent ease of the early morning. It was the dead of winter and either the sun wasn’t completely up or the storm was still clouding the sky, because there was only grey, filtered light coming through the window to play on the comforter as he hitched it back up to steal ten more minutes beneath it with his arms wound around Erwin.

The fact that Erwin _slept in_ was still something he could never reconcile, nor win any arguments about.

_“Everything bad in our world happens at night. As boss, you should be taking the brunt in the morning.”_

_“As lieutenant, you take it better than I do.”_

_“That’s an innuendo and I don’t appreciate it.”_

But he did appreciate it, secretly, because Levi appreciated mornings. At 7:10a.m., he anticipated the alarm before it sounded, and crawled roughly over Erwin on purpose to exit the bed. The bastard barely paid him any mind and actually turned over into the pocket of warmth his body left behind.

Coffee was his first priority; it always was. He walked softly to the kitchen area. The lights were sensor-activated and programmed by time of day, so they only rose to a calm, warm glow as he entered the room in his flannel pajama pants and managed not to bang his hip on the new center island that had been installed last month. He drank his coffee straight as it came from the Keurig, with one teaspoon of cinnamon but no cream or sugar. He drank it at the window, where he confirmed that yes, if the view of the city from the 13th floor told him anything, the storm had persisted. Glass along the row of floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room was still frosted, but the snow appeared to have stopped at the very least. Sleet had taken its place. Levi hated sleet, but then he knew no one in their right mind who enjoyed it. Business would hopefully be easily dealt with inside of the Legion building that day, with the exception of the hit he was actually looking forward to.

He showered, washing the scent of Erwin off for the time being, and as always did his best thinking inside of that sanctuary. The day’s schedule flashed through his head. Life had gotten more complicated in recent months, since the Legion took over the Southside territory, but it was only a matter of putting a few more puzzle pieces into place and sliding them around until he could make a day of it. Conversations he’d shelved for later dates came back to him in flashes and he either filed them back into his memory bank or shuffled them to the top for attention that very morning. As soon as he came out of the shower he was back in the bedroom to tap a few notes into his docket.

“Aren’t you cold?” Erwin half-mumbled behind him. Levi turned around, iPad still in hand, and sighed in mock disappointment, mostly because the interruption had caused him to lose his train of thought.

“Get out of bed, old man.”

“Put some clothes on. Showoff.”

“I intend to.” He swiped through a few contacts from Southside, deciding who took priority, and sighed before he put the tablet on the dresser and resigned himself to getting dressed. “Still, get out of bed.”

“I miss the smell of coffee brewing in the morning. I don’t like the Keurig.”

Levi walked over and plopped himself on the edge of the bed to pull on his trouser socks. Erwin, ever the grabby one as long as he was sleepy, reached over to hook his arm around Levi’s waist. “Stop it,” he was swatted away sternly. “The Keurig isn’t the reason you still can’t crawl out of bed at a decent hour, you were like that already. Hanji’s going to be looking for you first thing this morning and I’ll be forced to listen to an hour’s worth of figures and business I don’t give a shit about. Get up.”

He finally looked down at Erwin, trying to be stony about it. It was hard to maintain his salty expression, though, when Erwin insisted on looking so perfectly fuckable every single morning. “What’s in it for me?” He pushed fingers into his hair and stretched his arms at the elbows. Levi sighed to keep himself from catching the tenor of that groan of relief, and stood back up.

“You’re the one who told me to put on clothes, that’s all I’m saying. Besides, there’s no way I’m starting the day on your dick.”

“Grouch.”

“I have to kill someone today. Can you please do me the favor of throwing Hanji off my scent? I don’t even think she realizes I don’t know what she’s talking about when she goes on about the Beijing accounts.”

Erwin sighed, half-awake at last and sitting up in bed. “The Beijing accounts are tied into the manufacturing cover, which funds the guns – not the ones across the border, but for Asia, which—you really don’t want to know, do you?”

“No,” Levi answered simply, looking stunned that Erwin had even started to condescend to him. Just because he didn’t want to know didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of understanding. It wasn’t his business. _Business_ wasn’t his business, which was ironic considering that everything the Legion did was couched in business, and had been for years. For the purposes of the day’s events, though, he had much more important things on his mind. He finished dressing, slipping into his blazer only after adding a concealed shoulder holster that managed not to ruin the lines of his suit. It was far easier to hide a .38 than it was to hide a shotgun; the everyday grind had forced him to come to terms with that much.

Erwin had only just managed to walk into the kitchen by the time Levi emerged in full bespoke regalia.

“Have a good day,” he was greeted with a farewell next to the toaster, and drew up on his toes to offer the requisite morning kiss.

“I’ll probably see you around.” He reached around Erwin to snatch one half of the bagel that popped up from the toaster, ignoring the chastising sigh that knew it couldn’t do anything else about it. “Have a good day yourself.”

He could hear Hanji approaching the minute he hit the lobby floor. It was easy to tell it was Hanji; even with all the others who wore heels in the building, she had a way of walking that gave her a very distinctive rhythm. _Tap! Tap! Tap!_ Like she had everywhere to go and had half the time she needed to get there, and damn anyone who was in her way.

“Levi!” She was one of the few who simply yelled for him, because she knew he respected her prominence enough to stop and turn around.  

She approached with her iPad out. “Good morning,” he greeted her, making a quick sweep of her outfit. She wore heels with her suits. She wore heels with jeans. When he’d had the pleasure of taking her along on a job, she even wore heels in a butcher’s apron. “Last season’s Ralph Lauren?”

“Sears,” she said flatly, deflecting the jibe with a smile. “Did you sleep well?”

They kept walking together, further through the lobby and toward the restaurant. He hadn’t planned breakfast after pilfering half of Erwin’s, but apparently it was on Hanji’s mind. The Legion building was one of two properties that Erwin owned; the one he’d purchased after his ascension to power as the head of the eponymous new family of very legitimate businesswomen and men. What they did with their illegitimate time, that was another matter entirely, one that only concerned people like Hanji, Levi, the boss himself, and a few others on the day-to-day. “Quite well, actually.”

“Good, good.”

Sidelong, he glanced at her. By now she’d usually have launched into the financial goings-on with their interests around the globe, exhibiting a genuine and sometimes off-putting enthusiasm for stock trends and current events, but she did not. As CFO of the company itself, she was peerless. When it came to cooking the books for the _other_ business, however… that’s where she became an artist with “her” numbers.

“Hanji, you didn’t flag me down so you could ask me if I slept well.”

“Hm? Oh. Well, not really, no.”

“So I take it something happened last night? While we were sleeping well?” He purposefully brought Erwin into it without saying his name directly, like mothers brought fathers into the conversation when a child misbehaved. “What happened?”

“Not much.” Hanji took one longer stride out of sync with her rhythm and stopped walking. She turned slightly toward Levi to speak _sotto_. Her smile disintegrated and she put on her business face. “Maria was shot.”

Immediately Levi’s brain took off, considering contingencies and imagining how threads connected, but his face showed none of it. “Fuck.” He sighed.

“I didn’t say she _died_ , I just said she was shot.”

“What’s her condition?”

Hanji sighed. “Critical.” She paused. Levi was asking the next most important question with his eyes. “The head. From the front.”

“Fuck!”

Even if she survived, she wasn’t likely to maintain her special arrangement with the Legion thanks to that. Remaining in favor with the Titans was unlikely for her, and if she didn’t die in the hospital she would wish she had for all the hell she’d be put through. Levi wondered if they’d never meant to kill her in the first place. She wasn’t the Legion’s best informant, nor was she their most trusted, but she was always careful for how young she was. Though Levi didn’t necessarily enjoy commiserating with the enemy for favors, he respected her delicate tread when it came to her own cover.

“How?” He asked, rubbing his chin, trying to think.

“Sniper, from across the street. Reiner was with her as usual, but--”

“Shit. They mean business. They knew better than to go after her physically, but not even Reiner could have seen a sniper shot coming.” They hadn’t wanted her to survive. Even the Titans wanted Maria dead without suffering, and that chilled Levi to the core in the same moment that a surge of adrenaline woke him up better than the coffee had. ”She knows something, then. Something big.”   

“Well, even if the hemorrhage didn’t kill her it certainly wiped out that memory, I’m willing to bet.”

Levi had his phone in one hand and was dialing Erwin’s private number. “Hanji, shut up.” He put the phone to his ear. “Get down here _now._ ”

“I’ve heard,” Erwin answered calmly. “Mike’s already at the hospital, which is why Hanji delivered the message. He called me ten minutes ago. It’s only been two hours, don’t panic.”

“It’s a _head wound!”_ Levi began, before checking his volume. “It’s a head wound. Even if we send in our own doctors now, it’s—“

“According to Mike the whole place is sick with police already. We couldn’t get our people in if we wanted to. Reiner’s gone off the grid for the time being, but I’m sure we’ll hear more from him when he gets in touch. That intel is more valuable than an informant with a hole in her head, not to mention we don’t know how long her cover’s been blown and if she’s been fed false information in the meantime. For now, and going forward, we need to focus on the other two.”

Levi hesitated, and breathed heavily through his nose just to indicate how much it still pissed him off to cut and run before the last piece fell. “Roger.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

The other two – Rose and Sina, also code names – were in deeper than Maria had ever been. Sina was the first undercover job Erwin had ever devised, and he’d chosen her well. She was three years in with the Titans, now, and rarely reported back. She was in so deep that sometimes Levi expressed doubt that she was playing for their side anymore. As always, Erwin convinced him to have faith. The last tip she’d managed to deliver had led them within inches of identifying the leaders of the Titans and the most valuable organizational information they’d ever dreamed of; unfortunately, it was shoddy tactics that botched the whole operation, and progress was stymied. Sina started to demand more for her time after that. It was another reason they leaned on her so rarely. The day would come that she would prove invaluable, and that would be the day they were willing to gamble it all.

 Rose, on the other hand, was their diamond. Levi trusted her because he trusted those in her line of work, from experience in knowing how difficult that line of work was. Rose tempted fate every day as a call girl for the Titan dens, but her reputation kept her alive every time. She overheard things, more than she ingratiated herself. She observed and she extrapolated. Her memory was like a steel trap, and Levi loved to pick her brain when they met. Acting on every lead she gave them would have meant blowing her cover, but they still got the drop here and there with ease. As far as Levi was concerned, putting pressure on Rose wasn’t wise. She lived and breathed for the thrill of being a spy, and if he knew anything from informants that were so dedicated to their work, she would give herself away if she knew even a fraction of how important she was. Brilliant? Yes. Fastidious? Not especially.  

_“Why focus so much, though? You’re already making money hand over fist, even without needing to win back whatever they’ve taken.” Mike was Levi’s favorite person to talk to who didn’t happen to also be fucking him. Because Mike knew when to shut up, worked on intuition, and dared to ask questions that amounted to, “What the fuck are you doing?”_

_“It’s not about winning anything back, anymore. Not really.” Levi sat back and swirled the whiskey at the bottom of his glass. “Sure, when Erwin first went in with them, he was doing it to protect his own interests. Then he saw what they do.”_

_“Are you sure justice is a wise thing to waste so many hard-working criminal lives on? Do you think the day will come when they just stop giving a damn?”_

_“You know,” Levi crossed his legs and shook his head. “When I started killing people for money, it was just that. For money. And that’s the square that everyone starts at. The money is great. The protection is great. This isn’t a business for people who have many other guidelines, so as far as I’m concerned the vendetta against the Titans can be for whatever damn reason we want. As long as we’re running the accounts.”_

_Mike saw right through everything. “That’s still sort of a smokescreen, though, isn’t it? You want to know what’s going on. How they operate, who’s in charge, the whole shebang. You’re not working so hard at infiltration just to bust up a few blocks of territory or take over drug rings when you have shipping and manufacturing interests. It’s not the justice because you kill the victims you find in the dens anyway. It’s the mystery, isn’t it, Levi?”_

_Levi didn’t answer._

_“This is recreation. This is like playing hide and seek with a body count.”_

_“It certainly is fun, though.”_

“While we await the honor of your husband’s presence…” Hanji began, pulling Levi’s chair out at their table. Levi sneered. “There’s another matter. A pretty fucking big one.” The restaurant was never particularly busy for breakfast, but they still tucked themselves away near a corner. Everyone in the place was familiar. Levi didn’t mind discussing business there.

“Yes?”

“Those two kids I told you about. The ones who somehow learned who I am.”

“Oh, yeah.” They weren’t kids, exactly – in their early twenties, maybe, from the way Hanji described them. But they obviously didn’t have a home, and they’d been camping out her brownstone for two days, begging for the chance to work for the Legion. The real Legion, not Survey Corp. that was on Forbes lists and fine letterhead and the sides of buildings. To save her own skin, Hanji had ignored them at every chance. “I’m still dubious about that.”

“The girl got the drop on me this morning. Put a knife to my throat before I unlocked my car.” Hanji seemed extremely pleased by this, and chuckled to herself.  “I honestly don’t think they’re working for anyone else, but she was very good. Stealthy enough to surprise me. She might be valuable.”

“What happened?”

“I kneed her in the stomach and then tazed the boy when he tried to come at me. Then I got in my car, swung through Burger King for a Croissanwich, and came to work.”

“And what about the boy?”

“Keeps raving about killing the Titans, about how much we need him. There’s some trauma going on there, surely, but of course I’m not saying a word, not asking any questions right out in the open. Still, I got a closer look at his face…”

The conversation was put on hold while the waiter took their orders and poured their water. Levi bade Hanji to go on once they were left alone.

“He’s not just oily and dirty, like I thought yesterday. I mean, he is pretty grimy, but on his face... it’s a tattoo.”

Levi sipped from his glass (he never understood why the restaurant insisted on serving water in ridiculous crystal chalices, even if the dinner entrées did cost seventy dollars) and stared at her, unblinking. “On his face?”

“Oh, yes. Numbers, mostly. A string of about ten, twelve numbers running down the side of his face, right here.” She indicated the space between her eyebrow and ear, and dragged a finger down to her neck. “Now, obviously they were done by hand, by an amateur. Recently, too, if the redness of the skin tells me anything. The light was low, so don’t take my word on that. But that’s not the most interesting part.”

Indeed; numbers could mean anything. Levi cocked an eyebrow.

“Words on his forehead.” Hanji shifted in her seat and held up both palms. “Now, I didn’t think anything of it when I saw them because it was 4:00 a.m. and I hadn’t heard anything from Mike at the time, but now it’s all I can think about. You’re gonna shit.”

Levi seriously doubted that. He cocked his eyebrow more severely and blinked a few times, urging her to get on with it.

She took a deep, preparatory breath. “His face says _Remember Maria_.”

Breakfast plans were quickly cancelled. 


	3. Robigalia

Morning workouts had become a luxury in recent months. Hanji expected the duplicitous and intensive nature of her employment to be a strain on her health, but even then she was always able to imagine a free hour here and there for some yoga or a five mile run. She used to have a gym membership, but that was also a luxury that only people with a much lower profile and no potential price on their heads could afford. So she set up a modest home gym alongside her desk and PC, and watched _Suits_ episodes on DVD while she sped through a forty minute cardio attack at 4:00a.m. Both the elliptical and Patrick J. Adams were great for her heart rate.

At the fifteen minute mark, when the machine slipped into its most unforgiving setting, she heard her phone chime. “Shit, not now.” She lifted her head and cursed at the ceiling, but kept going just long enough to turn off the programmed workout and slow her body down. The chime went off again. It repeated every minute until she stepped out of the footholds and walked over to her desk.

She’d programmed that alert specifically to sound whenever there was unusual activity in the monitored accounts. Not the Legion’s accounts, though, and not even Survey Corp.’s accounts. As much as it made her giggle, those were the accounts she was monitoring on at least some twisted right side of the law. There was a laundry list of people whose financial activity she kept a close watch on, and for as much fancy footwork and favors she’d called in to do so, she expected it to pay off.

Crossing her legs as she lowered herself to the floor, she hunched over her phone and deciphered the code name for the account currentlyblowing up her phone.

Yearling. Withdrawal. $548,000. That was the entire account.

While her heart pounded, taking over the steam she’d already been building from exercise, another alert came through.

Yearling. Account closed.

She filled her lungs with a deep breath and dialed a number, reaching over to her file cabinet to grab few papers she hadn’t needed to look at in a long time. Knowing she’d be on hold for a few minutes a least, she took her time finding them.

“Delta Airlines, this is Marjorie speaking, how can I assist you today?” She’d start with Delta. Usually runners went with Delta; they were the cheapest.

“Marjorie, hi, my name is Stephanie and I’m calling from Expedia.” There was always at least one Stephanie. ”I’m sorry to bother you today but it seems we have a costumer who is just _insisting_ that he purchased his airline ticket through us. I’m fairly certain he went directly with you guys, and—“

“I’m sorry to cut you off, Stephanie, but can I get your IATA number?”

“Of course you can.” Hanji read from a small scrap of paper. She really needed to digitize these notes, but somehow they felt safer on the odds and ends that only her eyes could identify. “It’s 21986925.”

“Thank you for doing business with Delta Airlines. What is the customer’s name? I’d be glad to see if he has a ticket with us.”

“Thanks for helping. His name is Donald G. Yearling. I think he’s a Junior but it’s probably not on his ticket.”

“And what airport would he be departing from?”

“He doesn’t even seem sure about that. O’Hare, probably. Might as well check Midway, too.”

“Gotcha, thank you for that information. If you’ll allow me to place you on a brief hold…”

“Of course. Take your time.”

It was amazing the sort of information airlines could provide with just one easily accessible number. Sometimes they didn’t even ask for that.

Once the call concluded, Hanji took a moment of silence to just look at her cell phone and put all the pieces together. Numbers, research, the shadow work: those were her areas. She knew what was happening, but she wasn’t usually the person to devise what needed to be done.

Still sitting crosslegged in her yoga pants and a pair of Skechers, she dialed Mike’s number first. The chain of command was a loose concept in the Legion, but it existed. She always went to Mike first, because she personally had a tendency to call emergencies too quickly. Mike was a calming yin to her yang; besides, Erwin was more likely to answer his phone when his unofficial consigliere was calling, and Mike had a better way of delivering bad news, anyway. Hanji had never felt right being sarcastic with the boss. Sarcasm was her way of coping with the nerves. Levi understood.

Mike answered on the second ring, sounding wide awake. Hanji only needed about three hours of sleep a night to function (that was all she could afford on her schedule), but she had her doubts that Mike ever slept at all. “Yeah?”

“Well, Yearling’s running.”

“What?” He didn’t go for dramatic pauses or tone for effect. Mike was as efficient in conversation as he was in business.

“He cleared out his account, closed it, and I called the airline. He has a ticket bound for Asia.”

“Asia…?”

“Kazakhstan. No extradition.”

“Ah.”

“The fact that he took that precaution is sort of terrifying.”

“Well, whatever the case, the group at Karanes is definitely walking into a trap. There’s no deal tonight.” Off-handedly, like it was obvious. Because it _was_ obvious. And that’s why Hanji liked Mike.

She was silent for a minute, slouching forward to stretch out the kink in her back. “That’s half a million dollars.”

“Pocket change if we’re also talking about some of our key players getting it in the face.”

Deep breath. She hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet, and she was trying to break the habit of Burger King. Then she remembered they weren’t open yet. Either way, there were many things they would talk about over the phone but the T-word wasn’t one of them. “Can you meet me at Melrose? I need some fucking pancakes before I’m ready to process this.”

“Probably a good idea. And yes. Fifteen minutes?”

“You’ve got it.”

Four hours later, and the one who probably hadn’t slept at all was the only one who looked like he was awake. Everyone else was just faking it, and no one but Levi had even bothered putting on a tie or a jacket.

“If they do have intel on our crew it means we’re dealing with someone on the inside.” Again, Mike stated the obvious, but he was obviously testing whether anyone else was willing to throw in.

Erwin sat back in his chair, taking in a long, deep breath. “The question is who they want. If they think they’re going to take out Levi that’s just wishful thinking. Still,” he nodded toward Levi, “you’re obviously out.”

Levi threw up his hands and shook his head, but was too exhausted to even protest.

“Reason _being_ , we need this to be an incident on _their_ end. I’m willing to lose the money and the deal if it means we can bring Yearling’s people in for a chat. Suss them out.”

Levi was staring at the opposite wall, poured lazily into one of the chairs facing the oak credenza. “What about losing people?” He asked.

“Your team’s not going either, don’t worry.”

That hadn’t actually answered his question; both Hanji and Mike stayed silent. “So who _is_ going?”

“Levi’s team was on watch and they’re off the deal now,” Mike finally interrupted, not willing to deal with the business equivalent of a lover’s spat so early in the morning. “Who was going for backup?”

“I was taking Huber and Jaeger,” Levi mumbled.

Hanji chirped, nodding. “Interesting.”

Levi shot her a sharp glare and she shrugged innocently. She hadn’t stopped running algorithms on Eren Jaeger’s face since they’d taken him in a year ago. Nothing had materialized to connect him to the Titans, nor were his memories reliable, but she held on to her intuition and a generous amount of faith. “I’m not really going for intimidation, okay?” He still spoke as if he were leading the operation.

“Yeah, except that if this _is_ asurprise from the Titans – which is not out of question, especially now – I’m sure the huge fucking declaration of vengeance on his face will be a little rattling.”

“Keep Jaeger on,” Erwin interrupted the banter icily. Once all the attention was back on strategy, he added, “And let Kirschtein lead.”

“Kirschtein? You’re kidding.” That was Levi.

The two looked at each other, barely withholding the venom that naturally passed between them. They were killers by proper trade, and no matter what other things they shared, what other emotions filled in the lines of their interactions, the lines were always bold, black, and deadly. But they were respectful, over everything else. “He’s been sloppy since the Trost incident.”

“With good reason.” They never referred to anything good as an _incident_ , first of all. Jean Kirschtein had every right to be gunshy. But he was still an operative Levi had brought in. He had a personal stake in that particular ploy. He wasn’t willing to lose before he had a chance to be proven right.

“I understand, but a swift kick in the ass is exactly what he needs to decide whether or not he wants to just give up and die. If he’s as good as you claim he is –“

“He is.”

Erwin went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “—if he’s as good as you claim he is, this won’t be a problem.”

It wasn’t worth it to argue, so Levi took point on the next directive. “I’m keeping Huber on.”

“No.” The tension continued to rise in the way only tension in the penthouse office tended to rise. Hanji averted her eyes and Mike did the opposite, glancing stoically between Erwin and Levi as the former contradicted the latter. “Nix Huber, put Leonhardt on.”

Watching Levi wouldn’t have been enough to see the reaction, to someone who didn’t know the way he only indicated emotion with the most intimate tics. Of course Erwin knew, then; the way his eyes tensed and hardened just slightly, the slight swell of his chest as he took in the Levi approximation of a sharp breath.

“Add more to the team. Who’s fucked up lately?” Erwin pointed at Mike.

He wasn’t hesitant at all to reply. “Carolina. And Franz balked on the last visit to Miami.”

“Those two, then. Inform everyone personally, that’s the number one priority of the day. Find them, tell them. Don’t even breathe anything near the word Titan, because they need to be sharp, not terrified. Hanji: assemble some good people and watch them, watch their phones, follow them into the bathroom for all I care, just hold everyone close. Probably best to give the news later rather than sooner, see who jumps. I want to see reactions more than I want to see the outcome.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you don’t want to see the outcome of this,” Levi sniped. “Is there going to be a watch team at _all?_ ”

“No.”

“Jesus Christ,” Levi shook his head and muttered, but still he did not argue. He glanced at Erwin long enough to see him make sure Mike was no longer watching, and wink. He always did that. It used to be infuriating, and then, through a series of bizarre, unlikely, but indubitably interconnected happenings, Levi realized that it was Erwin’s small way of holding him close and whispering in his ear _I know exactly what I’m doing._

“Tch.” Still, Levi looked away, but it was only to keep anyone from seeing his expression soften.

Twelve hours later, Jean Kirschtein was weaving through traffic in his Navigator, on the way to the Karanes Shipping Warehouse in East Chicago. He finally decided that he’d been silent for too long. “So what does all that shit on your face mean?”

Eren Jaeger sighed, sick of explaining it to everyone he met. “I don’t know.” He tried to weasel out of it by pretending not to care, and shrugged.

“Huh? You don’t know? Tattoos on your fucking face, and you don’t know?”

The next tack was the one that he usually graduated to only after significant frustration. “I got them the night my mom was murdered right in front of me, okay? I don’t remember much about it, if you don’t mind.”

Jean actually laughed. “No need to get defensive. I mean, everyone must ask you about them.”

“Yeah, everyone keeps thinking it’s their business to know. But even I don’t know. Hanji says the one on my forehead means something.” He pushed up his heavy bangs to show Jean the messy REMEMBER MARIA. “Says it’s about the Titans.”

With a solemn nod, Jean turned down the radio and let them talk at a more reasonable volume. He ignored the mention of the Titans. “Yeah, that’s right. You kinda stalked her to get here, didn’t you?”

Eren didn’t respond directly; he shrugged again, and looked out the window just as they passed the Indiana state line.

“Too bad you’re too shitty to even work your way up. Like your sister.”

Without correcting him about their lack of blood relation, Eren shook his head and sighed. Mikasa was in Hong Kong. She’d already managed to impress the penthouse enough to be put on airplanes and handed fake identities. Word had it, she was taking out those who ran out on debts to the business. Both businesses. Several kinds of debts.

“If that’s the only barometer of skill, why haven’t _you_ moved up? You were an errand boy for Levi at age 12, from what I hear. You’ve had time.”

A hand reached out from the backseat and Franz patted Eren’s arm importantly. Out of the corner of his eye, Jean noticed that he didn’t react much to the sudden touch. He wasn’t jumpy. There was a good point, at least. “Yo, you don’t want to go there with Jean.”

“What do you mean?”

Franz let the moment swell in silence, until Jean gave a minute nod to indicate that he should simply say it, in the interest of full disclosure. Maybe Eren had a dead mom under his belt, but if he was going to use it to play the sympathy card Jean could compete with that. “Last year Jean was part of a team that went in deep with this outfit called Trost – right before you came on board, in fact. Trost was a Titan interest, it turns out, and Jean and his partner were supposed to get some eyes on the situation before taking action.” Franz paused for a long time.

“Go on, tell him what happened. If he doesn’t hear it from us, right now, he’s going to hear it eventually.”

“They were both plucked right off the street, in the middle of the day. Jean was captured, locked in a shithole somewhere. Drugged. When he came to, the door was unlocked, the Titans were gone, and his partner—“

“Use his name,” Jean interrupted softly, chillingly. Eren’s eyes went a little wider, just hearing that tone.

“Marco,” Franz said simply, the weight of his voice suggesting that he knew him as well. “They left half of Marco’s body. Right outside the door. No one knows what happened to the rest of him. That’s what they call a _gesture_.”

“So yeah,” Jean took the conversation back from Franz, raising his voice. “If you’ll allow it, I’ve been a little _hesitant_ to move up in the ranks, to go back on those jobs. The higher you move here, the closer you get to the Titans. That’s the real endgame. So I’m comfortable right where I am.”

“Isn’t this a big deal, though? Tonight?”

“Mid-level, at most.” Jean seemed to be tipping the scales toward desolate, though he was stalwart in that. “Still, there’s half a milly worth of guns changing hands and they put _us_ out in front. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, is all I’m saying.”

Carolina spoke up from the back. “Do you think it’s a trap?”

In response, Jean only chuckled.

The crew didn’t seem any jumpier for it, at least. Jean pulled into the warehouse parking lot just a little after nine o’clock, turned the truck around inside the massive reinforced barbed-wire fence, and backed up to the loading dock.

“We’re going in armed, per the boss,” Jean explained, opening his jacket to check his shoulder holster. “That’s a pretty grim sign, but I’m sure everyone here knows how to handle a gun.” He looked at Eren pointedly before exiting the vehicle.

Eren fidgeted only for a moment and decided not to stew in his insecurity too long, lest anyone notice. Despite all the practice time he put in at the range, he’d never fired his gun on a job before. Usually he was with Levi, though, and he never needed to.

He pulled out his SIG Pro and checked it, feeling the security of its weight in his hand before leaving the car. Before he could even get one foot out of the door, though, a soft, deep voice almost succeeded in startling him.

“That’s pretty heavy firepower for someone your size.”

It was the sort of thing Levi would say, so Eren took it in stride. He used the opportunity to take another long look at his gun. “I’ve been practicing with it for months. Short recoil, it’s actually not that bad.”

“If something happens out there,” Annie leaned over and sighed, her tone very close to Jean’s, “Don’t try to be a gangster. Fire that thing like you’ve learned.”

“I know. I’m actually very good, believe it or not.”

They looked at each other, and Eren held his breath at the way her eyes looked depthless, like she wasn’t really looking at him, wasn’t present in the situation at all. “I believe it. I’m going in behind you, so I’ve got your back.”

Jean slapped on the hood twice and his voice muffled through the cab to reach them. “Let’s fucking _go_.”

They went. Jean was carrying the money in a case, the sort of thing Eren was only used to seeing hold musical instruments or lighting equipment. “Spread out a little when we get in. Not too far,” he instructed them as they walked up to the door.

No one greeted them. They were not frisked. Eren had been through enough of these transactions that he knew a bad sign when he saw one so glaringly obvious. Everyone else obviously did, as well. Still, Jean remained as calm as he could on the outside, leading the way as they fanned out like a flock in formation under the one buzzing light from the warehouse ceiling.

A woman approached them, wearing black gloves. Maybe they were navy blue. Maybe they were brown. The lighting was terrible, though, and no one could tell. About two yards away, she stopped. Four others flanked her. To call the scene on the visual, they were outnumbered by one. To call it in the more likely sense, they were fucked.

Even Jean couldn’t help gulping to wet his dry throat before he asked, “Where’s Yearling? We were supposed to meet Yearling.”

“And you weren’t supposed to bring guns.”

“We’re picking up guns,” Jean shrugged and quipped. “I honestly don’t see the logic in that.”

She wasn’t amused, whoever she was. “Those are disassembled.”

“Is that was happened to Yearling, too?”

Jean didn’t say something was wrong. There wasn’t time to say something was wrong. Out of the corner of his eye, Eren saw Jean’s knees bend slightly as he dropped the case and reached inside his jacket. In the same instant, Eren felt the first bullet whizz past his shoulder. It hit Annie with a cracking thud, and she only grunted as she collapsed.

Two more rounds went off from the other side before Jean started firing, but once his fingers were curled around the grip of his SIG Pro, Eren stopped counting.

All at once, he remembered everything.


	4. Supplicia Canum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note to keep in mind: this story isn't like a lot of the stories I write. Terminalia is a purposefully disjointed and twisted narrative, in the spirit of all the intrigue going on. If that's not your cup of tea, absolutely fine. I wish I could write it all at once so you could see where this is leading, but I really thank you if you're sticking with the story to see where it goes. 
> 
> And yeah, that's an implication you see in this chapter. I don't really want porn to enter into Terminalia, considering the flow of plot that I want, but who's saying it won't show up on my Tumblr? js js js js js

“That’s a painting by Margitte,” Levi said flatly, following the line of Eren’s gaze. “He won that painting at auction and even then it cost more than you would ever sell for on the black market.”

The lieutenant was upset. That didn’t take much acuity to figure out. Still, that had been low, so Eren felt entitled to take silent offense. He kept staring at the painting when Levi didn’t stop staring at him, the implication far darker than it had been moments before.  

They’d been pulled out of an opera, so that was thrown out by Hanji as an excuse for Levi’s poor attitude. Somehow Eren couldn’t fathom why a performance of _La Traviata_ was more important than seven dead bodies, but then again there were paintings in the penthouse worth more than his human existence. Besides – and Levi kept mentioning this – he’d jumped out of a third story window two days ago and deserved a night off.

“You’re _fine_ ,” Erwin muttered at him strongly from his desk. Levi uncrossed his legs with a swift, balletic motion, and walked over to the credenza. Though he threw Hanji a worried glance, Eren stayed put and stayed quiet. He knew why he’d been brought before the leaders of the Legion, but he had no idea what they were waiting for.

“I was shot.”

Erwin pulled a face, boasting such ennui that Eren yet again wondered whether any of them were considering all the people that had just been killed. “You get shot far too often. I think I’ve made that point before.”

Levi drew back slowly, letting one finger flick from the desk heavily at the finale of the movement. “Oh, I apologize. Maybe you’d like a _replacement?”_ He threw his hand out and indicated Eren, who shot up to a board-straight posture and gulped.

“Calm yourself.” And they looked at each other, silently, for a few moments. Levi relaxed, little by little, and finally rolled his shoulders out with a huff. “They’ll be here momentarily.”

“I’ll bet they didn’t get pulled out of the opera.”

Erwin snatched off the reading glasses he was wearing with a sudden clatter and pushed his face into his hand, growling, sighing. “I’ll charter a jet this weekend and we can fucking go to La Scala if you want, just _let it go?_ ”

“Do you want some tea?” Eren was stunned by the voice that suddenly addressed him. He glanced over and there was Hanji, smiling softly at him (but looking no less calculating and sharp for it), holding a mug out. “It’s orange pekoe but I can make you something different.”

“I’m not thirsty,” he answered, and realized he hadn’t said a word for quite some time. Maybe the last word he’d said had been to Jean, something like “ _get down”_ or “ _look out”_ or maybe just something less heroic like “ _son of a bitch.”_ Regardless, it had been a while. He shook his head a couple of times and swallowed hard. “I’m fine.”

She sort of half-giggled and drank. Then, she looked at him again -- not the way Levi seemed to be sizing him up for sale, no, but much more enthusiastically. Finally she said, in an almost reverent whisper, “That was _amazing_ work, by the way.”

“Th-thank you.” He waited for a few moments, as recent events started to coalesce into concrete memories. After making sure that Erwin and Levi were still in heated discussion about something regarding last January, he gestured for Hanji’s attention and whispered, “Is Annie okay?”

She nodded quickly, also throwing a glance at the other two. “She’s in the hospital. She’ll be fine.”

“She was bleeding a lot.”

“She played dead to keep them from shooting her again. It was only a shoulder wound. It was bleeding a lot because it went clear through the other side. Exit wounds are messy.”

“Yeah,” Eren nodded, and a wave of relief spread through him.

“You should know that,” Hanji added, and chuckled sadistically. He didn’t respond.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Hanji glanced over her shoulder and stood up smoothly, moving away from the couch and slurping on her tea as she went. Eren glanced at the desk. Levi and Erwin were staring at each other; the lieutenant leaned challengingly forward until the knock repeated itself and Erwin threw his hand out as if to question whether Levi would ever fucking answer the door.

When Levi turned away, Erwin glanced over and met Eren’s eyes, two fingers pushed hard against his temple. The look didn’t say much, really. He seemed to sigh, but Eren had been warned that the boss was difficult to read. Without trying to figure it out, he looked down uncomfortably as three people entered the room after Levi.

“Nile.”

“Erwin.”

“Is Crystal still…?” His pointing finger danced back and forth between the other two visitors, letting the question go unfinished until it was answered.

“She’s in Costa Rica for the time being, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Ah.”

“You already know Yancey, and this is—“

“I don’t entirely care. It’s late.”

“Fair enough.”

Nile Dawk, Eren would later be told, was something of a rival and a colleague at once. The Legion profited just as much from the protection that came from his organization as it paid hand over fist for it. That knowledge would only make Eren marginally aware, in retrospect, of what was being discussed. The visitors sat down, and Levi took his place behind the desk, pacing every now and then, mostly acting like an irritated housecat.

“Now, then. What the fuck?” Erwin opened what Eren could only imagine were negotiations of some sort, in the most unexpected way.

“Yeah, exactly. What the fuck?” Nile shot back.

“I don’t expect that I have to explain to you why I called you out here, which is a pretty grand gesture in and of itself, to say nothing of the short notice.”

“I’m really assuming it has something to do with the seven dead people in the Karanes warehouse.”

“Hmmm,” Erwin responded chillingly, not moving but managing so much terrifying emotion (or was it lack of emotion that made it terrifying?) in a simple noise of confirmation.

“Listen, it’s not worth it to go into Yearling. He’s been double-crossing you for years, but until now it was all skimming off the top and farm league shit like that. This was his move and he made it. _It’s happened before_. So I believe I’m the one completely in the right to wonder why a botched deal like this required seven people to get shot in the head.”

Hanji suddenly spoke up, holding one finger aloft to make her point of consideration. “Five were shot in the head, the other two were dispatched with slightly less efficiently.”

Staring at her as if her very existence were upsetting, Nile paused for a second. “Thanks.”

Erwin picked the ball up where he had dropped it. “Your people shot at us first. They came to steal from us and I don’t see why it’s shocking to you that every one of them was killed.”

Nile Dawk was a skittish person, it seemed. He hopped in his seat, to the edge of it, and gestured wildly at the air between himself and the desk. “Because we have this _thing_ – in case you’ve forgotten – this loose but honest agreement on warnings, injuries, incapacitation before flat-out _murder_ of each other’s employees? Huh? Maybe you’ve forgotten that part? The part where we help you in exchange for your thugs not flying off the fucking handle and going _Tombstone_ on a bunch of motherfuckers at the first sign of conflict?”

“Wow,” Levi finally muttered, obviously more amazed at the movie reference than anything else.

Erwin stood up and leaned over the desk, one palm flat on top of it and the other hand casually in his pocket. It was a stance somewhere between threatening and unconcerned. Difficult to read, indeed. “Your family spent decades earning its ties with the Chicago PD, but those are nothing I couldn’t buy for a few million, I’m sure. One initial payoff just about equal to what changes hands every year with you, Nile.”

“Are you suggesting something? Do you really want to clean up after the Hell I could rain down on you, this very night? You, specifically, and your business secondarily?”

There was silence, tense and heavy with history.

Then, Levi finally stepped out from behind the desk, the heels of his shoes clipping just audibly enough on the floor between rugs as he walked to the couch. Before Eren could react, a fist was in his hair and he was hauled up in Levi’s grip. That night he jumped out of the window the lieutenant hadn’t been shot directly in his leg, as such, but the bullet had grazed his calf. Still, his stride was slightly awkward and he seemed to be overcompensating for the handicap by channeling his brawn elsewhere.

Clawing at Levi’s arm, though it did little good, Eren cried out and flailed before he was thrown across the rug. He landed in the space between the Erwin’s desk and the chairs in which Nile and his people were seated. He couldn’t even get one elbow up to brace himself before he felt the fine Italian sole of Levi’s shoe grind into his face.

“Thug. Singular. _Nile_. This kid. This one. Fucking _kid_.”

Nile tried to seem unimpressed, but when Levi leaned in and pulled Eren’s face up for him to see it, he flinched. Most people did, seeing the tattoos. Eren looked away, trying to catch his breath, still. “Looks old enough to me.”

“ _Spare me_ your personal preferences, asshole. The simple fact is, things went to shit because of this guy. The old man’s being diplomatic because he doesn’t want to waste him.”

“So you’ve got a loose cannon?”

“More than a loose cannon.” Levi’s hand just got tighter in his hair, and Eren closed his eyes, trying to keep them from watering. It wasn’t working. He whimpered. “Apparently an innate killing machine. Which could be useful.”

Nile half-rolled his eyes and started to swat at the air. “I don’t have time for this. Waste the kid, punish him if he’s at fault, I’ll write it off as a mistake and we can call it square.”   

Levi paused and glanced down heavily at Eren, then back at Nile. “Punish him… or waste him? Those are two different things.”

“I think the life of one personnel mistake is worth seven good people, Erwin.” His eyes dared to float above Levi’s level, seeking approval beyond the barricade. Levi snapped in the air so sharply it made Eren jump again, but Eren wasn’t about to move for anything. His body was twisted awkwardly and Levi’s foot was situated on top of his ribcage. He didn’t budge, not that he could even if he tried.

“You’re talking to _me_ , shithead. You want to get to him? You go through _me._ ”

Nile glared back at Levi. “I think the real question is why you don’t want to waste him, after what just happened. Calling emergency meetings on a Friday night is far more complicated than taking out the trash. And I know how this operation runs. Turnover is… high. So there has to be something about this guy that’s special.”

“Tsch,” Levi said. “You think I don’t want to do it?”

Eren was eager to hear whatever Levi had to say next, but before another word was uttered he could only hear ringing in his ears, after the impact of a foot to the side of his head sent him reeling. Then, his chest felt like it was hammered, blow after blow. Throbbing took over for every other normal feeling, sharp stabs of pain for cognition. He wanted to react but he could only focus on not biting into his own tongue and remembering to breathe as the beating went on and he started to fear brain damage if Levi went on kicking in his head for too long.

When the fear actually began to fade, because it was wasting too much energy: that was the most terrifying point.

He heard Levi’s feet and fists actually connecting with his body, in the third person marveling at the dull and occasionally sickening sounds. The last thing he actually discerned, when the ringing ebbed and the throb of his pulse allowed him to hear, was Levi pressing the barrel of a gun to his head. Eren whined. He heard words. “I’ll do it right here, but first let me tell you why you _don’t_ want me to do that.”

He didn’t black out, exactly. He kept blinking in and out of too much pain, in and out of knowing what was going on. Words didn’t make sense and Levi kept hauling him up by the neck, pointing at him, speaking firmly, rattling him, and then hissing when all Eren would hear was the sibilance of each word.  

Eventually, there were mumbles. The sound of footsteps. Closing doors. He was released, and then gentler hands were moving him, a gentler voice was coaxing him to wake up. Cool water. Something incredibly soft on his skin, cleaning him up.

Eren tried to talk and his mouth felt like it was full of wadded up rags. That was the flesh of his own mouth, swollen and shredded from the beating. Hanji’s voice talked back. “Shut up, don’t talk. You need to rest.”

For the first moment in a long while, Eren felt comfortable enough to let down his defenses, and gave himself permission to slip back to sleep while his head was cradled in Hanji’s lap. He’d find out later, about the same time he found out about who Nile Dawk was, that Hanji wasn’t actually the nurturing type. She was simply interested in him, beyond the extent to which she usually regarded most people. That had everything to do with the reason they hadn’t killed him.

That wasn’t foremost on Eren’s mind, however. Until they talked again, he let himself believe she was nurturing, and relinquished his guard enough to entertain thoughts unrelated to vigilance. They weren’t the best thoughts, maybe, nor were they comforting in the least, but his subconscious had been eager for the chance to revisit them since the warehouse.

“Eren!” His body flinched, even in its sleeping state, at the memory of his mother’s blood-curdling cry, her hand reaching for him from the hallway when he opened the door. He’d come as soon as she called him, whispering that someone had broken into the house – he left work without saying a word, ran at full speed from the train station to their house. But when he answered the door, breathless and frightened, the only thing she screamed at him was to, “Run!”

He hesitated. Maybe those moments were all it took, but strong arms grabbed him from behind and held a knife to his throat. He could feel the breath as it filled the chest pressed into his back, and he didn’t even have the presence of mind to close his eyes while he watched his mother’s legs kicking, her whole body struggling a few yards away as a blade went into her neck, sawed a rough line from one ear to the next. Her arms shuddered and she stopped pulling at the hand covering her mouth. Her back arched hard and then her legs stopped twitching. Blood seeped through the fabric of her bathrobe and started to drip onto the floor. A small trail was left as she was dragged further into the hall. Eren never knew what happened after that. He never wanted to.

That part – the part where he got home, the part where she died – that had always been noise in the back of his mind, ever since it happened. Knowing the truth of it wasn’t the same as reliving it day by day, but the commitment he’d made to burying it somewhere in his brain was full-time work. As for the other part – the part that happened after – he’d never even remembered it. Not when Mikasa found him later that night, not when the doctors said there was nothing they could do about removing unwanted tattoos, not when they refused to go to the police and ran away from everyone, not until the Karanes warehouse.

Maybe it was a trick of his subconscious. Maybe he was imagining it all. Maybe that’s what he wanted to believe, so it didn’t have to be the truth that he absolutely recognized the voice crying over him as he screamed against the pain of the tattoo gun. “The Titans killed her. The Titans killed your mother.”

Knowledge that he hated them had been with him as long as his mother hadn’t, but hearing those words in his memory again was what he’d needed. To survive, to fight, to kill everyone in the room.

Eren snapped awake with a start, jarring his neck in the process. Immediately, he groaned and lifted a hand to cradle his cheek, still pillowy and tender.

“Welcome back.” Levi’s voice was the first to take the place of the one echoing in his mind, over and over, daring him to tell anyone. Eren wanted to flinch at the sound but only did so inwardly. His eyes swept the spot next to him on the couch. Hanji was gone. Levi was sitting there holding a wine glass by its rim. “You look like shit. Can you move?”

Grunting, he tried, and succeeded to varying degrees. No bones seemed to be broken, at the very least; nothing suggested a concussion. Levi was careful, that way, about how far he let things go.

Eren sat up, with some difficulty, and leant heavily over his knees. “I think you broke my tooth.”

“Did I?” Levi smirked, and sipped from his wine.

Wing tips came into Eren’s line of sight while he stared blearily at the rug, noticed the spots of blood on it, wondered how he’d looked while he was being beaten. It took him a moment to react, but Eren glanced up just in time for Erwin to kneel down in front of him. “We’ll get you a dentist,” he said, and glanced over at Levi. “I suppose we should apologize. Levi gets passionate about manipulating people.”

“Especially Nile Dawk,” Levi spoke up. Eren kept looking at the boss. “We need to get the rug cleaned ASAP.”

“Manipulating people?” He wanted to say it clearly but everything was still jumbled in the puffiness of his mouth.

“You can sleep here tonight.”

“He’s _not_ coming to bed with us while he’s wheezing every breath through his nose like a dying animal.” That was Levi again.

“I meant the couch, but… just to spite you…”Erwin glanced over.

“The couch is fine,” Eren spoke up and Erwin looked back to him, an almost _soft_ look passing over his angular features.

“Are you all right?” He asked, more sincerely than expected.

Every instinct told Eren to say no – every instinct except self-preservation, which had become his primary focus as of late. He realized for the first time that there was a blanket pooled around him, something he’d been swaddled in during his lapse of consciousness. Tightening his fingers in it, he looked at his lap and nodded.

“Welcome to the penthouse,” Erwin said, and stood up.

It would be the next afternoon before he was briefed about his status as a glorified jigsaw puzzle, informed that his talent for killing people would be useful in the meantime while they worked to solve the mystery of the tattoos on his face, and how they related to the Titans. The Titans, who had killed his mother. The Titans, who hadn’t been responsible for the double cross in the Karanes warehouse but whom Nile Dawk’s organization feared more than enough to call off Levi. Eren didn’t speak a word about the voice he recognized, about the thing he’d remembered, if it was even a memory at all and not a pain-induced hallucination.

He just slid back into a horizontal position on the couch, listening as Levi followed Erwin out of the room. “Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?” Erwin’s voice spoke first.

“I can already tell what you’re going to want for an anniversary present, I’m just saying you need to wait until the swelling goes down.”

Eren didn’t try to think too much about that, either.

   


End file.
